תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

Another argument against the mythical interpretation of the Gospel miracles is founded on an assumed necessary connection between "genuineness" and "authenticity." The genuineness of a writing is the fact of its actual composition, or at least supervision, by the author whose name it bears, and whose work it pretends to be; authenticity means truthfulness of narrative or statement. For example, the question of the genuineness of the Fourth Gospel is the question as to whether John really wrote it or not; the question of its authenticity, is the question as to whether its narratives and statements of fact are true or not, and whether true in detail or only true substantially.

Now, it has been argued, that genuineness and authenticity can be only artificially seperated. If genuine, the Gospels are authentic, it is said-and if authentic, they are genuine, (Norton, Inter. Evidences, p. 10). The relation between genuineness and authenticity is indeed an important thing to settle, and one wonders at the carelessness of the above statement. It is plain that the genuineness of a writing may be a most important element in estimating its authenticity, for it touches directly the author's value as a witness but it is no less plain that the authenticity (truthfulness) of a writing, settles nothing with regard to its authorship. It may be rightly or wrongly ascribed to any individual, and its truth remain just the same. Indeed, the author of the work above referred to, flatly contradicts himself on this point, on page 98 of the same work. "If we prove the genuineness of the Gospels [he says,] we prove the truth of Christianity; but on the other hand, to disprove the genuineness of the Gospels (were that possible), would not be to advance a step toward disproving its truth." It appears from the next page, that by "truth of Christianity," the author means its miraculous origin." But if, as he said previously, authenticity proves genuineness, then that which is not genuine cannot be authentic, for it would thereby be proved to be genuine. But what of the former proposition, that genuineness proves authenticity? Can this be admitted without reserve? It is so admitted by Strauss. "We have seen [he says] that in reference to the early history of the Old Testament, the mythical view could be embraced by those only who doubted the composition of these scriptures by eye-witnesses or contemporary writes. This was equally the case with reference to the New." Again,-"It would most unquestionably be an argument of decisive weight in favor of the credibility of the Biblical history, could it indeed be shown that it was written by eyewitnesses, or even by persons nearly contemporaneous with the events

narrated."

But this admission is to my mind hasty and untenable. Genuineness can prove perfect authenticity only if human nature be infallible. Cannot an eye-witness or contemporaneous writer make mistakes? May he not forget in the lapse of time? Is he necessarily and in all ages critical? Is it impossible that he should believe current reports, and record them with sincere

conviction, especially if his own memory fail? And with reference to the Gospels, is not thirty or forty years time enough for any memory to lapse from perfect correctness, and for any man to be insensibly influenced by the pervading spirit and current faith of the age, and to adopt into his own belief what all the world implicitly trusts? Doubtless genuineness is of weight; it may be of very great weight; but it is not final. If Matthew wrote the gospel that goes under his name, it is certainly more valuable than if composed by some person unknown, who, perhaps, never saw the Master. The proof of its genuineness at once elevates it to the rank of testimony proceeding from one in general an eye-witness. But testimony has been shown to be only one form of probability, and other considerations may set it aside. Take the case of the wonders related of the relics of St. Stephen. According to Gibbon, St. Augustine in his work, De Civitate Dei, solemnly enumerates and attests more than seventy miracles performed by St. Stephen's relics, three of which were resurrections from the dead, performed in the space of two years, and within the limits of his own diocese." Augustine's honesty is unimpeached; his understanding, undoubted. It is scarcely credible that he should use these wonders, happening in his own ecclesiastical jurisdition, as proofs of the truth of Christianity, which he had dearly at heart, and yet give no time to the easy task of substantiating them. Moreover, the De Civitate Dei, is of undoubted genuineness. Yet who believes these things on Augustine's testimony, though he be a present witness, and of unquestioned integrity and ability.

If we understand that authenticity and genuineness are not necessarily connected, and are frequently not connected in fact, we are in a position to judge and condemn another form of this same argument, which has been advanced with great earnestness and effect, viz., the plea that myths, confessedly not intentional fictions, could not have been produced or proclaimed by apostles (Norton, Inter. Evid., p. 34); and that if the apostles taught these myths, they must have been intentional deceivers (Ibid, pp. 22–24). This assertion Norton afterwards flatly contradicts, to serve another purpose, when, in discussing the first two chapters of Matthew, and arguing that not case can be made out against the general authenticity of the book by the "errors" of these chapters, even on the supposition of their genuineness, he says: "It appears then on this supposition, that Matthew adopted and embodied in his Gospel a false narrative of circumstances connected with the birth and infancy of our Lord. What follows from this? We had no reason before to suppose that he was well qualified as a historical critic, to decide on the truth or falsehood of a narrative. He was originally of a class looked upon by his countrymen as degraded, a Jewish Tax Gatherer in the service of the Roman Government. With his Gospel before us, we cannot suppose him to have had any literary culture; and we have no authentic account of his having in any way distinguished himself, except by its composition, after becoming an apostle. He had no personal knowledge con

cerning the supposed events narrated in the first two chapters, and was writing about sixty years after their occurrence. Under these circumstances,

he adopted an erroneous narrative of those events. * * * The narrative must have been reported and believed previously to his incorporating it in his Gospel. But if it was believed by others, what is there in the fact that it was believed by Matthew, which may change in any considerable degree our opinion of him as a writer." In this passage, Norton finds something quite different from intentional deception the proper inference from an untrue story in an Evangelist; and it is plain that, mutatis mutandis, the above will serve to explain the possible acceptation by an evangelist, in good faith, of other stories currently "reported and believed," since, if believed by others, what is there in the fact that they were believed by Evangelists, which can be matter of surprise or perplexity, or destroy their general fidelity to the character and natural acts of Jesus. The idea of the myth as the natural expressive outgrowth from the popular heart, traceable to no narrow locality, much less confined to any, Norton has failed to understand. Consequently he dwells upon the necessity of publicly teaching these stories, in order to win credence for them (Inter. Evidences, p. 32); insists that the Gentiles must be supposed to have received the Gospels and Christianity "not from the main body of the Jewish Christians, but from those few mistaken men among them," who propogated fabulous stories (p. 40), the ignorant and fanatical portion of Christ's disciples (p. 42); contends that no fabrication, whether intentional or otherwise, would be left so incomplete; and finally, argues that the Gospels are so fragmentary, as to suppose, for their complete understanding, a general knowledge of the main facts of the time, which facts, we learn from other sources, were, or must, or might have been existing (pp. 192200, pp. 241 Seq.), a correspondence which he thinks impossible to fiction, and therefore stamping the seal of fact on the Gospel narratives. This argument plainly proceeds on the assumption that it is maintained that the Gospels were intentional fictions. Even then it would be deprived of much force by the writers being at any rate contemporary with the general state of society supposed in their fiction, and no reason appears why they should relate a tale laid in their own times, in a manner inconsistent with their own times. It is the reproducing of the air and manners of long anterior times which is the work of genius. Witness the novels of Sir Walter Scott. The case is still stronger on the mythical hypothesis; tales springing from the people will not be found inconsistent with, but in all respects according with, the circumstances of the people. They are often only these very circumstances in the dress of poetical narrative. "History [says Dean Milman] to be true, must condescend to speak the language of legend; the belief of the times is part of the record of the times; and though there may occur what may baffle its more calm and searching philosophy, it must not disdain that which was the primal, almost universal, motive of human life" (Essays and Reviews, p. 111, Eng. Ed.); again, speaking of the mythical

religion of the middle ages, he says, "It could not but grow up out of the kindled imagination and religious faith of Christendom; and such religion the historian who should presume to condemn as a vast plan of fraud, or a philosopher who should venture to disdain as a fabric of folly, only deserving to be forgotten, would be equally unjust, equally blind to its real uses, assuredly ignorant of its importance and its uses in the history of man." (Lat. Christianity).

The last argument against the mythical interpretation, which we shall notice, is one founded on the character of Jesus, an argument which is entitled certainly to no inconsiderable weight in favor of the substantial authenticity of the Gospel record, but which not only has no power to substantiate the miracles but actually defeats and refutes itself when so applied.

Great stress has been laid upon the character of Jesus, as a grand conception to be accounted for if the Gospels be not true; a character of exquisite moral purity; of great and assured pretensions, yet of lowly estate and poor extraction; using no arts or promises to allure disciples; on the contrary, warning them of hardship and persecution, and the bitter cross. We presume few of us could find this stated too strongly for us anywhere. "It would take a Jesus to forge a Jesus," said Theodore Parker. The pen that lingers lovingly over his moral and spiritual exaltation, becomes. instantly lovely to us. A recent critic pronounces the devotion of Mr. Furness, to the study of that character, "one of the most touching things in literature." We agree, nay we hasten to assert, that nothing but the reality of Jesus and his character, is adequate to account for the existence of the conception in the midst of the pagan world. Jesus is not now a mere name; the word stands for the sublime character we find in the Gospels; and Jesus lived. But when it is added, that if he called his disciples to such hardships, it is difficult to imagine how he could gain converts, except by the "most satisfactory evidence" of his "divine mission and authority," (Norton, Inter. Evid., p. 272), we take refuge in the very magnitude of character on which the argument rests. That character needed no credentials; it was its own attestation; miracles could add as little to its subduing charm as to its moral worth. The men who could leave "father and mother" for his sake and follow him, bearing a cross, we cannot imagine sitting in cold judgment upon the evidential value of wonders and signs. In that mysterious presence, they encountered almost naked soul, through its serene purity, free as a released spirit while yet the flesh hung round it. Men who sought that presence, went out again into a changed world, as different to the outward, as their quickened souls to the inward, sense. They were oppressed by a wonder and admiration which they could neither contain nor express; and the world, which never fails to meet our mood, took on at once the dress of the marvellous, and gave back wondrous fact to wondering soul. To explain the effect of Jesus upon the world, we need only himself; nor shall we reluct if we find that the miracles are a part of that effect, and divide not with him the glory of the cause.

With this we finish our discussion of the objections to the mythical interpretation as applied to the Gospels. The limits of this article forbid any recapitulation of the arguments which we have stated and answered in several articles, and we must bid farewell to the subject. In the next article we shall discuss critically some of the most prominent miraculous stories of the Gospels.

THE CASE OF JOHN J. MERRITT.

THE case of John J. Mercharge to

HE case of John J. Merritt, who was disowned by the Monthly Meeting

of New York, on the charge of his having declined to take the advice which had been given him, to discontinue his public communications, was brought to the Quarterly Meeting of Westbury, on his appeal, and at the meeting in the 7th month last, resulted, as already announced by us, in the confirmation of the judgment of the Monthly Meeting. It furnishes so many interesting exhibitions of the method of conducting judicial proceedings, and the church government which is sometimes resorted to in the Society of Friends, that we have deemed it best to present it as a lucid exposition of what with them is usually wrapped in secrecy,-almost restricting ourselves to the official documents and correspondence in connection with the proceedings in reference thereto.

An injunction to silence, had for some time been resting on John J. Merritt, when he received the note, of which the following is a copy : New York, 7 mo., 2d, 1867.

JOHN J. MERRITT,

Dear Friend, It was the judgment of the preparative Meeting of Ministers and Elders, held this day, that thy case be presented to the Monthly Meeting, to-morrow, that further care may be taken by it on account of thy communications in our meetings; and as clerk of the above meeting, I was requested to give thee this information.

[blocks in formation]

The next document, in the order of time, is the following minute of the Monthly Meeting:

At the Monthly Meeting of New York, held 7 mo., 2nd, 1867, the following communication was received from the preparative Meeting of the Ministers and Elders: To the Monthly Meeting of New York:

At the Preparative Meeting of Ministers and Elders, held in New York, 7 mo., 3rd, 1867. The committee in the case of John J. Merritt, reported, they had earnestly advised him* to discontinue his public communications in our meetings, which, as they believed, very much disturbed them, but that he declined to take their advice.

* See THE FRIEND, Vol. II, No. 4, page 127, for a full report of the above interview, at which this advice was given.

« הקודםהמשך »